Billions Beyond Control – AIIB's Disclosure Deficit | urgewald e.V.
www.urgewald.org
This report combines two assessments of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s (AIIB) transparency performance. The first draws on the 2025 DFI Transparency Index by Publish What You Fund (PWYF), which compares AIIB’s transparency policies with those of other multilateral development banks (MDBs). The second is based on findings from the AIIB Watch, a civil society initiative monitoring environmental and human rights risks in AIIB-financed infrastructure projects.

A new report by Urgewald, a Germany-based NGO, combines two assessments of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s (AIIB) transparency performance. The first draws on the 2025 DFI Transparency Index by Publish What You Fund (PWYF), which compares AIIB’s transparency policies with those of other multilateral development banks (MDBs). The second is based on findings from the AIIB Watch, a civil society initiative monitoring environmental and human rights risks in AIIB-financed infrastructure projects.

Here is the full report: Billions Beyond Control – AIIB’s Disclosure Deficit (pdf).

Archived

  • The AIIB is performing worse then comparable organziations, the Germany-based NGO Urgewald says in a report. AIIB does not disclose indirect investments (sub-investments) made through financial intermediaries, in contrast to several other entities that provide such key information.
  • The precise number of people affected by resettlement due to AIIB projects is frequently not disclosed. When data is available, documentation is inconsistent, varies widely in quality, and contains contradictory information about resettlement impacts.
  • Key environmental and social documents are repeatedly published after project approval. Prior to approval, documentation often does not include a full risk assessment based on field visits.
  • AIIB continues to finance fossil fuel projects. Projects that appear to be clean energy finance, such as the proposed China Inner Mongolia Clean Energy Transition Project, are in reality financing fossil fuel infrastructure – in this case, a coal project.

[…]

  • AIIB’s transparency framework looks stronger on paper than it is in practice […] The policy sets out a standard, but broad exceptions make circumventing it possible. For instance, the policy establishes minimum disclosure periods, but management can waive these requirements at its discretion without disclosing the reasons to the public.
  • The new lending instruments, Climate Policy-Based Financing (CPBF) and Nature Finance, are AIIB’s two newest and very well-funded vehicles. Both reproduce the same weakness this report identifies elsewhere, lacking disclosure or safeguarding regulations that match their scale.
  • CPBF projects are disclosed inconsistently, circumvent AIIB’s own safeguards […] Additionally, CPBF is counted as 100% climate finance without clear disclosure, monitoring and exclusion regulations.

[…]

The AIIB is a international development bank headquartered in Beijing, China, and launched by the head of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping.

At its inception, the AIIB was explicitly linked to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), but now also included investments with states that are not involved with the BRI. The bank is headed by Zou Jiayi, a Chinese politician and economist, who previously served as a vice minister of the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China from 2018 to 2021.

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